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Subject:Re: Help with phrasing From:Robert Bononno <bononno -at- ACF2 -dot- NYU -dot- EDU> Date:Mon, 25 Apr 1994 21:17:55 -0400
Jack,
I couldn't help laughing as I read this (you do stand up?). While I agree
with your analysis and reluctance to use retrofit, I'm stuck with it. As
I mentioned in the initial message (well, maybe you're not really
addressing my initial message. Sorry to be such an egotist.) this
appeared in a translation I was working and I have to use "retrofit."
That's what the customer has decided on (it appears in the source text,
and in a number of their docs) and that's what I've got to use. I can
play around with the rest of the phrase to a certain extent, however.
I don't know if a retrofit is a backward anything, by the way. It's more
like an add-on, something they do after the machine has been built and
shipped to the customer. It's retro only in the sense of being done after
the fact. I thought this was fairly standard usage in industry?
Robert Bononno /// Techline
bononno -at- acf2 -dot- nyu -dot- edu
CIS 73670,1570
On Mon, 25 Apr 1994, Jack Shaw wrote:
> On B. Bononno's query about "Retrofit in case of problems",
> I can imagine this phrase could make the NASA folks break
> out in hives. There, if you have problems with the "retros"
> (those rockets that push the other way to slow you down),
> it can really give you fits -- particularly when you're
> doing re-entry...
> And that's the problem I have with "retrofits" itself, since
> it means "backward" (as do retrograde, retrogress, and the like).
> Or, something you'd better do fast when the "new, improved"
> upgrade leaves a pool of hydraulic fluid all over the floor...
> So if that's what's meant, why not good old "Restoring the
> Widget Wonder if Problems Occur", or the like -- ? Let
> the engineers call it "Retrofitting..." to their constriction
> pump's content, but for the body public...
